I was going to make an article, but that would be equally redundant.
There are times I feel like I’m repeating myself. Sometimes I’m sure I discussed something and haven’t, sometimes I discuss something I already talked about and forgot. The problem is so many of the same mistakes are being made throughout the entertainment industry, but simply linking to or reblogging old posts would be a waste of both our times. Every article is somebody’s first, especially the way Sarah at Instapundit is sending people my way. I just got another boost from Friday’s post, but I think I want to pull away from that level of heavy commentary and try to have more fun with my commentaries and review. It’s just the SEECAs are making that more and more impossible.
I got to do a Clutter Report this week, after last week’s insomnia. I thought backing up my computer files would be easy. I spent time before reorganizing the back-up drive. Apparently I didn’t categorize it enough. Now I just hope I don’t overdo it the other way. I think it’s a bit rambly in spots. This kind of article I haven’t done in a while during my dad’s operation and recovery and I’ve been getting rambly here as well lately even before it. Time is what I really need to organize.
This week we only have the one chapter to review of Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: Mirror Image. I do want to find time to make a new batch of articles that aren’t time-sensitive to bank for when I need it, as well as continuing the Transformers lore I’ve been putting together. Speaking of the Cybertron warriors, with things a bit calmer there’s that CBS Transformers cartoon pitch I still need to go over. That’s going to be multiple articles as well. It depends on what happens to me and my dad this week, plus whatever the idiots ruining storytelling wand to screw up next. Have a great week, everyone!
While I often defend fealty to the source material, I do understand how people can prefer the changed version. I still maintain that after a certain amount of changes you might as well go ahead and create something new so fans of the original can get a better adaptation. I understand defenders of the changes because The NeverEnding Story is my all-time favorite movie but not a very good adaptation of Michael Ende’s book. Having heard the story of the book I’m not sure I would have enjoyed it given that the two versions are practically mirror opposites of each other. That’s why I say Man Of Steel is a decent superhero movie (that opinion sinking with every attempt by Zach Snyder to defend his changes) but a terrible Superman adaptation. It might have worked better as an original superhero with clear Superman inspirations.
Disney’s Big Hero 6 movie also goes on that list. Like The NeverEnding Story, I didn’t know about the original Marvel comic (at a time before Disney bought Marvel so we can’t blame Kevin Feige’s group of morons for once). The original Earth-616 version (the comics universe for those of you who only know the movies that should be Earth-199999) bares little resemblance to the movie that came after, though like many other comics turned into movies elements would later fill in from the movie and TV series (Earth-14123). Still, 616’s Baymax is a dragon. Nobody really talks about this except in comparison to the movie and series, so I guess they felt they could change whatever they wanted…which it turns out was practically everything. Unlike most Marvel Studios output or anything else from Iger’s Disney, it actually works. It’s a really good movie, which is why I gave the series a chance, and now you can, too.
Tonight I bring you the two part first episode of Big Hero 6: The Series, which is starting to come out on Disney Channel Animation’s YouTube channel. The story sees the restoration of Baymax the inflatable medical robot, and what became of the heroes after the movie. Hiro is going to college because he’s a child genius, and finds that Baymax 1 sent his chip back to Hiro at the end of the movie, a teaser for a potential sequel. Instead we get a 2D stylized series in which San Fransokyo (a fusion of the better parts of San Francisco and Tokyo–long story listed in their Marvel Database entry linked in the previous paragraph) has another supervillain. While the teens (except for Fred) are all ready to resume their normal lives, events will pull them back into the superhero business. Also, Hiro must adjust to college life and the institute’s new principal while trying to restore Baymax, a situation made worse by old and new enemies. It’s a really good series, though not a good adaptation of the comics. Like current Marvel Studios output, except it doesn’t suck.
Wait, I’ve done this before. However, that was the first ongoing episode, essentially the second or third episode depending on how you count it. This is the first actual story for the series as it’s all going on YouTube legally as the full series and I don’t have time to do another Showcase. Ah, well. Enjoy.
“I…I think I’m in love. Or having a heart attack. It’s been that kind of day.”
Japanese media is a target for the people who don’t do their research but want to rush to protect the children…usually because it makes them look good while being lazy in understanding another culture. So they’ll ban things they don’t understand, and a new Texas law is so loose that it could negatively affect manga and Japanese merchandise sales in the state, as one store has opted not to take the risk. Are they right to pull early Dragon Ball just in case? Bounding Into Comics contributor Spencer Baculi looks at the unexpected consequences of a vague law Japanese media haters might use against stores to strike at the country.
Before I start I need to apologize to my regular readership. I do everything I can to keep this site out of the culture war and politics, which gets harder and harder as activists seek to twist everything to their point of view, even the stuff they’re elitist snobs against or just don’t fit their tastes. BW Media Spotlight is about storytelling media, not the press and not pop culture, politics, or anyplace they all meet. Unfortunately, to properly move into this topic I’m going to have to for a moment and this is going to be a bit more rambly than normal–which given how many of my commentaries are stream of consciousness is saying something. Please bear with me. We’ll be back on track.
Okay, so on September 10th, political activist and influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated. If that’s not undenyable you may be part of the problem. I don’t care if you liked or hated the things he spoke about. I’m not going to go into the latest news on the shooter because it may all be outdated by the time you read this anyway and will go into sociopolitical areas I’m still trying to avoid to stay on the topic of this website. I usually call out activists left or right only when their views negatively affect the presentation, creating a preachy mess with characters that actually come off the opposite of what’s intended. Again, I discuss stories. However, a man who just set up a table on a university campus and challenged other people to challenge his perspectives being shot in the neck, the general area of our voice boxes, is either intentional or irony. Either way, it’s horrible, and his wife and young children (the latter never having experienced any death before most likely) now have to live without their husband and daddy. Imagine telling someone who barely understands life why their father is never coming home again and what they saw, especially your child. If you support the shooter, go away because you don’t belong around a site that discusses superheroes so often.
Which leads to our topic. I’m writing this on September 11th to go up September 12th. It wasn’t easy to put this together. Even after a nap, I’m still plenty mad and I never knew the man or his family. YouTube started sending me some clips of his previous college campus visits in the days before the shooting, interestingly enough. I saw nothing there that would lead to these actions. He fought with words and was ended with a bullet because the shooter refused to challenge his words. And yet, the people who write words for a living–ones about heroes fighting villains, monsters, and the everincroaching darkness are required to not be the things heroes fight. Unfortunately, this incident has proven this to not always be the case, a revelation that actually started because Donald Trump kept Democrats from claiming the first woman president (due mostly to the women they chose if they were honest) has again flashed with Charlie Kirk’s death, as comic and video game creators have come out in support of the murder of a man whose biggest crime was speaking words.
To bring this back to the site’s topic and the topic of this article, this made me think about the directions stories have gone, with far too many pushing away existing heroes to replace them with the writer’s “better” heroes or to outright embrace the villain…and some of this predates Kirk OR Trump.
“Oh wait, I was supposed to rescue a different girl in another part of the jungle. The union’s going to be maaddd!”
Jungle Comics #1
GlenKel Publishing (January, 1940)
I want to be clear here. Even if these stories are good, I’m not going to be reviewing this series further. I’m doing this as a form of curiosity. The only Tarzan stories I really got into was the cartoons. I do like the Phantom, and I reviewed a Sheena comic as part of my look at Seduction Of The Innocent because Frederic Wertham put her on his list of comics to go after, probably not having read that one, either. Jungle hero stories are just not in my field of interest. I’m checking this out as a sample of the genre from the period by a publish I have not looked into before. So enjoy this while it’s here.
Looks like Comic Book Plus fixed their server issues from earlier this week. I guess that means I’m going to have to finish Peacemaker next week. Ah, well. Can’t win them all.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
BW Media Spotlight 